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- Genre: Doctoral Dissertation
Description
Sports communication is a vibrant, blossoming research area within the communication discipline. One of the more fruitful directions in sports communication research pertains to social media. Social media has embedded itself in the sports world in a very short period of time. As a result, there is a need for instructional resources that prepare students to understand the nuances and power that social media possess. This research provides the foundation for a case study textbook centered on social media and sports communication. Specifically, four cases dealing with: (a) athletes using social media to encourage input from fans; (b) sports organizations using social media as an agenda-setting tool; (c) negative parasocial interaction expressed to athletes via social media; and (d) athletes using social media to enact image repair are presented. These cases demonstrate that social media is a valuable conduit between athletes and fans that enables athletes and sports organizations to cultivate fan identity and maintain control over public information. The cases also demonstrate that fan behavior via social media can quickly turn problematic, requiring that athletes and sports organizations respond appropriately, yet strategically. The research concludes by offering implications for future social media and sports communication research.
ContributorsSanderson, Jimmy (Author) / Kassing, Jeffrey W. (Thesis advisor) / Ramirez Jr, Artemio (Committee member) / Meân, Lindsey J. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
In 1981, Fernando Valenzuela had one of the most unlikely rookie seasons for theLos Angeles Dodgers. Originally from a rural farm town in northern Mexico, he left an enduring legacy that persists within Mexican/American and Latinx fans and communities throughout Los Angeles. Not only did Fernando help the Dodgers capture the World Series, he captured the hearts of the people and the communities who had shunned the Dodgers for decades. This act of protest was a response to the destruction of three neighborhoods—La Paloma, Palo Verde, and Bishop—that were destroyed amid a protracted legal battle with the city of Los Angeles throughout the 1950’s that culminated in coercion, violence, and a new baseball stadium. This project intends to remember the neighborhoods of La Paloma, Palo Verde, and Bishop and those who lost their homes alongside the public memory of Fernando Valenzuela’s unlikely rookie season, dubbed Fernandomania, and his career with the Los Angeles Dodgers. I illumine how the public memories of Fernandomania, a moment of communitas, and Fernando Valenzuela have facilitated the public forgetting of La Loma, Palo Verde, and Bishop by making Chavez Ravine into a novel public idiom for American baseball rather than a site of violence and resistance. In the process of facilitating the public forgetting of these neighborhoods, the sports media commits a pernicious discursive violence upon Fernando Valenzuela’s hyper-visible brown body that reveals the workings of a white racial frame designed to protect American baseball’s white masculine ideology. Ultimately, the Los Angeles Dodgers benefit from Fernando’s unmistakably cultural and racial Mexican identity—the source of his otherization and incongruity with American baseball’s white heroism—as the transgressions of the past are slowly forgotten.
ContributorsZamora, Erin Victoria (Author) / Brouwer, Daniel C (Thesis advisor) / Meân, Lindsey J. (Committee member) / Ore, Ersula J. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
Traveling is one of the most enriching and fulfilling activities for most people. Yet factors such as crowded airports, long waiting queues, and inaccessible features of airports and airplanes often make traveling stressful for many individuals including those with disabilities. This qualitative phenomenological research study examined the underexplored area of traveling with a vision disability. Framed around a Co-cultural theoretical perspective, the study examined the lived experiences of vision impaired individuals with regard to receiving disability assistance services during air travel. The study specifically explored the communication strategies that vision impaired individuals employed to manage their assistance-related air travel needs. The study used in-depth interviews for data collection, and a combination of thematic analysis techniques for data analysis. Findings indicated four categories of assistance-related issues that vision impaired participants frequently experienced in their travel: personnel training issues, system issues, policy issues, and physical accessibility issues. The study also identified four Co-cultural communication orientations that participants used in navigating air travel: assertive accommodation, aggressive accommodation, assertive assimilation, and nonassertive assimilation. In addition, the study identified a new Co-cultural communication practice - normalizing for self. Findings of this research conclude that despite three decades since the passage of United States legislation to protect the rights of disabled people, vision impaired travelers still frequently experience inequitable air travel practices. The study offers recommendations on pressing issues concerning policies and regulations that can inform airline executives and federal legislators in facilitating a more equitable and pleasurable air travel experience for those with vision disabilities.
ContributorsBhagchandani, Bhoomika (Author) / Kassing, Jeffrey W. (Thesis advisor) / Broome, Benjamin J. (Committee member) / Zirulnik, Michael L. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
College sports in America represent a multibillion dollar industry. Recruiting collegiate student-athletes not only is costly for university teams, but is integral for their long-term success. Universities spend substantial amounts of money to recruit student-athletes, yet relatively little academic work has focused on understanding the athletic recruiting process. While NCAA policy regulates when communication is allowed between coaches and student-athletes, there is a lack of literature investigating what the communicative aspects of athletic recruiting entail. Thus, the purpose of this dissertation is to unpack the student-athlete experience of collegiate athletic recruitment. It builds on theoretical work from organizational and interpersonal communication, as well as management and marketing, to extend existing knowledge of student-athletes’ college choice. Specifically, a conceptual model is presented that includes how student-athletes’ expectations and relationships during athletic recruitment contribute to an overall affinity for the university that, in turn, influences choice.
Thirty Division I student-athletes from six different sports participated in focus groups to discuss their recruitment experiences. Taking a grounded theory approach to the focus group transcripts, thematic analysis illuminated what was most memorable for student-athletes about their recruitment, what expectations they had for the process, and what relational benefits they sought when making their college choice decision. Findings reinforced the prominence of communication in the recruitment process, and indicated the importance of interpersonal relationships, authentic communication, and a customized recruiting experience. This work represents the start of a scholarly trajectory which will further conceptualize and test the relational elements of athletic recruiting. Future directions, as well as theoretical and practical implications, are discussed.
Thirty Division I student-athletes from six different sports participated in focus groups to discuss their recruitment experiences. Taking a grounded theory approach to the focus group transcripts, thematic analysis illuminated what was most memorable for student-athletes about their recruitment, what expectations they had for the process, and what relational benefits they sought when making their college choice decision. Findings reinforced the prominence of communication in the recruitment process, and indicated the importance of interpersonal relationships, authentic communication, and a customized recruiting experience. This work represents the start of a scholarly trajectory which will further conceptualize and test the relational elements of athletic recruiting. Future directions, as well as theoretical and practical implications, are discussed.
ContributorsPosteher, Karlee A (Author) / Kassing, Jeffrey W. (Thesis advisor) / Mongeau, Paul A. (Thesis advisor) / Mandel, Naomi (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019